Tour de France - Armstrong Remains Third; Nocentini Leads and Stays with Yellow Jersey

It seems like everything will remain the same after the 12th stage of the Tour de France was over on Thursday; Rinaldo Nocentini keeps the yellow jersey since he still is No. 1 in the overall standings, Alberto Contador is second, six minutes behind Nocentini and Lance Armstrong is third with an eight-minute difference from the leader.

For the 12th stage the winner was Nicki Sorensen from Denmark, after breaking away from a small group of seven riders that were heading to the finish line of this stage that was 211.5 kilometers long and went from Tonnerre to Vittel, including six small hills. The main pack was leaded by Mark Cavendish from Britain who won the stages on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, but the current leaders of the Tour didn't want to make any effort to chase the break up package that included Egoi Martinez, Franco Pellizotti, Remi Pauriol, Sylvain Calzati and Markus Fothen besides Nicki Sorensen, who was the winner at the end.

Cavendish was the favorite to win this stage since he leaded the whole stage almost, but at the end he decided not to take risks and did not chase the break up team. He won three stages already and was heading to a fourth one on Thursday but it didn't happen at the end.

However, Armstrong and Contador ended with the main peloton while Lance Armstrong pulled over while his team fixed the back tire with 37 miles left to go. He is taking all of the precautions while they head up to Alps on the weekend.

The last stages had been full of crashes and accidents and for the Wednesday stage there were 19 riders severely injured. He said that the last stages had been very stressful for him and the team because if you get involved on a crash, you may lose everything you have already accomplished and that is why they have to try to avoid them.

"Yesterday, there was no way to avoid that crash, if you were just behind it, you were going down," Armstrong said. "So that is something which keeps you up at night. You have to constantly pay attention. I try to give myself a bit of space from people in front of me so I have a bit of time to brake."

The overall standings are still the same with Nocentini at the top. The rivalry between Lance and Contador was not so visible in this flat stages but it will be coming out again in the weekend since the first stage of the Alps will start on Sunday. The battle will start again since they are both good on climbing and the hilltops finishes are good for attacks.

Contador said that the past stages on flat surface marked the difference but for the TV viewers are kind of boring. There was some tension at the beginning of each stage and when there was a crash. Contador was not involved in any crash since he was on time to stop his bike each time. We'll see what happens over the weekend.